11 ms·

Attacked By Thugs (2004)

123 points by hubot 12y ago

codecondo 12y ago
Director: Steven Spielberg
slowmotiony 12y ago
That's not the police I know, and I've been living in Poland for 24 years now.
- Kiro 12y ago
  For good or bad?
- flatline 12y ago
  It left me with the impression that Elmer was the beginning and end of that little misadventure and that he was one of a kind.
- lgieron 12y ago
  Also, and I've been living in Poland for my whole live (33 years now), must have met or read about tens of thousands of people by now, and have never encountered anyone named Elmer.
  - idlewords 12y ago
    Presumably it was a nickname.
BrandonM 12y ago
It might be worth adding [2004] to the title? My wife and I were just in Warsaw for a few weeks, in the exact region he described, and we saw no signs of crime to speak of. We saw very few police out and about, just the occasional uniformed officer at a metro station.
- spacefight 12y ago
  The crime the author describes is hard to detect until an assault/attack has been executed on somebody.
- jwr 12y ago
  Warsaw is quite safe these days. You really have to go out of your way to get robbed or attacked.
- odiroot 12y ago
  Yeah, Vistula riverbanks are pretty safe nowadays as they've become Warsaw's 24/7 party boulevard. About the police, as far as I remember, somewhere around 2003-2004 there was this huge push to keep uniformed policemen on the corners.
- NickFitz 12y ago
  He does say "This riverside park doesn't figure much in Warsaw criminal lore" at the start of the second paragraph.
antihero 12y ago
Is this like the Polish version of The Shield?
hellbreakslose 12y ago
Nice story, you should write a book about it FAGGOT
BugBrother 12y ago
I got a surreal feeling when reading about the police reaction. When I lived in Stockholm a decade ago, I called in a few times. The worst case was in the subway, when a big black guy talked incoherently in bad Swedish and started to beat on the windows with a crowbar. I shrugged, walked to the next wagon and called the police. I gave up when I realised they weren't interested in hearing which subway line I was on and what time, so they could meet up with it. At least they answered that time... The point is, not long after some crazy person killed a few people with a baseball bat or something outside a subway station. I always wondered if it was the same person. (I didn't see any pictures in the newspapers, which implies an immigrant, like the crowbar guy.) It doesn't matter if it was the same person, a bunch of violent crazy and/or drugged people will destroy others' lives as long as they are outside. (As I understand, the Finnish police otoh is well respected and trusted. I don't really know about Denmark/Finland.)
- seivan 12y ago
  Yeah that's Sweden for you. Actually recently the cops have been told not to engage when a crime is occurring, and instead just to take notes. They don't want riots. A week ago a riot occurred in Rinkeby (islamic enclave) when a cop stopped a speeding car.
  - blip99 12y ago
    No, they just can't be arsed to work, that's all.
    - seivan 12y ago
      Not sure how serious you are, but this was a directive that came from the top. They take shit from thugs AND from politician trying to score easy points painting the cops as the bad guys.
      - guard-of-terra 12y ago
        I don't understand how it's still possible to score points that way if things described by grangrandparents are true. Public should have switched to "cops are bad guys unless there is an immigrant involved" long ago.
Kiro 12y ago
I'm sorry but I was hoping they would find the thugs and just beat the hell out of them. I've lived in a real ghetto type of area in Spain where the track suit thugs robbing people were an everyday feature.
- ximi 12y ago
  I'm planning to move to Spain soon, so may I ask where it is that you lived?
  - Kiro 12y ago
    La Línea de la Concepción, the border town next to Gibraltar. Not a very nice place to live (Gibraltar is awesome and super safe though, but expensive).
    - BSousa 12y ago
      On the other hand, there are a bunch of nice places around the area that are pretty safe and beautiful (Guadiaro, Sabinillas, Manilva, or larger/more expensive you have Sotogrande, Estepona) But yeah, La Linea is an absolute dump, wouldn't be caught living there (the smells, the people, the pollution, horrible!)
      - Kiro 12y ago
        Yeah, you're absolutely right. If you're working in Gibraltar and can't afford living there or want to live in Spain I would definitely recommend some of those or at least Santa Margarita. You can get a villa in Spain for the same price as a small one bedroom apartment in Gibraltar.
        mnemonicsloth 12y ago
        What do you think about British sovereignty?
        12y ago
blackdogie 12y ago
in case you've missed it, it's from 2004, so I doubt that it's still like that in Warsaw.
lotsofmangos 12y ago
Reminds me a little of Bert Kreischer's skit, "The Machine". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHfroJBMlVM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHfroJBMlVM
cpks 12y ago
I wish we had cops like this in Cambridge, MA. Whenever I've reported a crime, or seen people report a crime, the police can't be bothered...
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  You may want to temper that desire with the thought that it does sound as though, motivated as they were, the police did about the same as the original thugs, to a variety of other people, without finding anyone. edit - The German general Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord was quoted as saying; "I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent -- their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy -- they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief." These police in this story are definitely in the stupid and diligent section of Kurt's matrix.
  - hypertexthero 12y ago
    I've recently [experienced][1] the latter type of policeman here in Rome. [1]: http://simongriffee.com/notebook/police-aggression-coercion-photographing-colosseum-rome http://simongriffee.com/notebook/police-aggression-coercion-...
- nsfmc 12y ago
  I had the exact opposite experience in cambridge in 2006. I saw some kids trying to steal a vespa and called the police, dispatch didn't give me any hope that the situation would actually be addressed even though i could see it happening a block away from me. about ten minutes later, i get a call from the police to go id the kids about a quarter mile away. about two months later, i got a summons to testify out by ashmont. i didn't really connect "i see something" with "i will say something in court" when i called and it gave me an appreciation for the realities of witness intimidation. in contrast, someone walked through my office once and lifted a couple ipads and a few wallets. mountain view police came by about half an hour later, took a report, and that's the last i heard of it. some things are easier to deal with and a small robbery like that i'm told is basically a lost cause. i often found cambridge, somerville and medford police and fire were impressively responsive, even for relatively minor complaints, but i'm sorry you and your friends' experiences have been lackluster.
Spearchucker 12y ago
Krav Maga. First thing it teaches you is to stay away from areas where something like this is possible. The next thing they teach you is to run away. If you think you'll look like a coward, compare that feeling to having a knife in your arm. If none of that works out for you, they teach you how to defend yourself. Brutally. Even how to extricate your wrist or arm from a grab. Physical size and strength (yours and your assailants) doesn't matter. Just a couple of lessons should equip you well enough to avoid what happened here. Give the lessons some time and you should have enough to deal with multiple assailants, knife, stick and gun threats. I see this as a basic life skill, right up there with at least enough knowledge to differentiate a Monet from a Van Gogh, or a Beethoven from a Rachmaninoff.
- rb2k_ 12y ago
  Kind of a stretch to call that a "basic life skill". In my last 30 years, I never had to fight anyone or differentiate a Monet from a Van Gough or a Beethoven from a Rachmaninoff. Then again, I don't life in crime heavy neighbourhoods or go to dinner parties that fancy. Maybe that's something for the next 30.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    You should get out more, I've needed those skills in one evening. edit - Defending yourself is a basic life skill. Not ever getting into a fight means you are already fairly good at it.
    - jessaustin 12y ago
      Let me guess: when you drink beer, you prefer Dos Equis.
      - lotsofmangos 12y ago
        Wasn't familiar with the advert till I just looked it up. But no, I have to say, that if I am feeling pretentious, I would have to claim to be more Churchillian in my tastes. What really sets you up for breakfast is some Carlsberg Special Brew, washed down with a nice glass of Buckfast Tonic Wine.
julie1 12y ago
I am coming from «la banlieue». These kind of incidents happens to you so much time in your life that I can't empathize. Aggression is stressful, but even being beaten is not the end of the world. It's part of the process of becoming adult at my opinion to know how to face these kind of incidents. And our special policemen «la BAC» are behaving like bad cops in movie we call them the cowboys. When you see them in the suburbs they cover a surface of 15km in radius. But, when you go in Paris, where people are wealthy you can have 4 cars looking for a block because one gypsiy has been spotted pickpocketing. The normal cops on the field are worse. They can control you. And even if you are white (and right) when they control you if you are not in suit an tie or looking like a rich kid they will talk to you like a 6 years old kid if they think you look like a criminal. Most of the time I am white and dressed like a rick kid, so it's rather pretty okay for me. I have 2 friend of mine who are in the police. I know what they face, and I also see the other side of the fence. The worst is it does not seems related to human nature, but much more the result of a cascade of bad political, economical and social decisions that resulted in a clock-like mechanic of systemic violence based on a ghettoisation of violence. Just to say where I come from we all experienced these «aggression», and I will develop the reason why it is bad to flee and not face the problem. I avoided not the streets of my town, but the violence (my martial art was running like hell). And then I learnt how to face it more constructively. I learnt. By overcoming your fear of the place, you can meet the people: the thugs, the cowboy, the rich kids .... And you see that whatever you can think, this violence is not directed towards you. It is directed towards the society, and the pain they live in. Towards discrimination ans poverty. You learn there are bad guys every where (cops, rich kids, thugs) and nice guys too. But learn for survival to spot two important informations: who has the more power, and who can reach you. to sum up: R > C > T in terms of power. Rich kids are out of reach of the law, and the thugs because they live in their ghetto, and can call for more cops. You may think it is not violent a rich kid. But in the private school near me the kids of celebrities (such as famous actors) were famous for drug consommation (they had the money), being thieves and all, but the cops were constantly surveying the public school where no one had as much money (coke was expensive). Cops have more power on you and the thugs because they put you in jail for fallacious reasons. So you learn to not be picky when they troll you and talk to you as if you were a retarded. You notice that they do it all the more you are black or to tanned. Except if you have a kipa, that would be antisemitism and that is not well socially tolerated. Then, they are the thugs, they are a pain in the ass. They are often the dealers and some times thugging the rich kids. But, they never thug the rich kids where they live, because troubles are bad for business. So I you are close to a place where people deal, you have less crimes that make the people call the police (like prostitution). It can be seen as cool. Then you go to work to the capital. There people call you an affabulator or a mythomaniac when you tell your stories, bacause «they live in the same place, and it never happened to them». And one day at works a rich kid will whine because he was «thugged». An incident level 2 on the Richer scale of what you experienced. And he will call for more security, more repression, and he will eventually blame it on the coloured and tanned. It is not always true, but mostly we can spot a lot of the «rich kids» are jews, because sepharadim last name are as easy to recognize as the colour of the skin. It creates prejudices. Is it stastically true? I don't care. I you want to understand, you have to accept the other's point of view. And guess what, because I was learning french boxing I met both people practicing «ratonnade»(when you go in a city to beat the pulp of the arabs) and thugging the rich kids. I liked these people though. They hate each others because a fraction of the others are violent to them on the sole reason of their difference. So they have violent discriminating violence that reinforces itself in vicious feedback loop: no one is innocent. And they all go voting marine le pen hoping she will get rid of the bad guys. So I decided to take a stand rationally. I blame it on everyone. I blame it more on the more powerful. The vicious circle can only be broken by stopping to exert discriminative violence, and stopping to create the social, political reasons of the core violence : poverty AND ghettoisation. I quite loaded the end of my description so that you have an overview of how the conflict in Israel can spread to other cities in Europa. They spread because we built the same kind of ghettos where poor and tanned are concentrated and other citizens live in another reality protected by the walls of the force of order. The conflict still has not yet comes as far as using tank and rockets. Just stones, kicks vs tasers and gum guns (40mm cartridge with gum balls). The moral of my story is when you are thugged, learn to pass through the violence so you don't take part in this vicious cicle. So that you don't ignore it, and try to make you understanding of this shitty situation. If you avoid it, if you avoid the places where over citizens are going you ignore what is happening in your community. And if you call for only more order, you just take part in the building of violence. Problems are to be face. Problems are to be solved, especially when they induce the violence and the pain in the community. Maybe my analysis is wrong, but I think I am right to care. I was right not to flee and whine. PS for the record my city -Pontoise- ranks as one of the calmest city you can see in my banlieue, and the aggression I have faced were no more than 4 on a span of 30 years except if you add the 6 guys always trying to beat me at the end of school for 6 months in a row because I was socially awkward and pedantic, but they never got me, because I was escaping smartly the school every time -but this is just bullying- I don't call that an aggression just an initiatic rite for your acceptance in the empire of nerddom.

123 points by hubot 12y ago

codecondo 12y ago

Director: Steven Spielberg

slowmotiony 12y ago

That's not the police I know, and I've been living in Poland for 24 years now.

Kiro 12y ago
For good or bad?
flatline 12y ago
It left me with the impression that Elmer was the beginning and end of that little misadventure and that he was one of a kind.
lgieron 12y ago
Also, and I've been living in Poland for my whole live (33 years now), must have met or read about tens of thousands of people by now, and have never encountered anyone named Elmer.
- idlewords 12y ago
  Presumably it was a nickname.

BrandonM 12y ago

It might be worth adding [2004] to the title? My wife and I were just in Warsaw for a few weeks, in the exact region he described, and we saw no signs of crime to speak of. We saw very few police out and about, just the occasional uniformed officer at a metro station.

spacefight 12y ago
The crime the author describes is hard to detect until an assault/attack has been executed on somebody.
jwr 12y ago
Warsaw is quite safe these days. You really have to go out of your way to get robbed or attacked.
odiroot 12y ago
Yeah, Vistula riverbanks are pretty safe nowadays as they've become Warsaw's 24/7 party boulevard. About the police, as far as I remember, somewhere around 2003-2004 there was this huge push to keep uniformed policemen on the corners.
NickFitz 12y ago
He does say "This riverside park doesn't figure much in Warsaw criminal lore" at the start of the second paragraph.

antihero 12y ago

Is this like the Polish version of The Shield?

hellbreakslose 12y ago

Nice story, you should write a book about it FAGGOT

BugBrother 12y ago

I got a surreal feeling when reading about the police reaction. When I lived in Stockholm a decade ago, I called in a few times. The worst case was in the subway, when a big black guy talked incoherently in bad Swedish and started to beat on the windows with a crowbar. I shrugged, walked to the next wagon and called the police. I gave up when I realised they weren't interested in hearing which subway line I was on and what time, so they could meet up with it. At least they answered that time... The point is, not long after some crazy person killed a few people with a baseball bat or something outside a subway station. I always wondered if it was the same person. (I didn't see any pictures in the newspapers, which implies an immigrant, like the crowbar guy.) It doesn't matter if it was the same person, a bunch of violent crazy and/or drugged people will destroy others' lives as long as they are outside. (As I understand, the Finnish police otoh is well respected and trusted. I don't really know about Denmark/Finland.)

seivan 12y ago
Yeah that's Sweden for you. Actually recently the cops have been told not to engage when a crime is occurring, and instead just to take notes. They don't want riots. A week ago a riot occurred in Rinkeby (islamic enclave) when a cop stopped a speeding car.
- blip99 12y ago
  No, they just can't be arsed to work, that's all.
  - seivan 12y ago
    Not sure how serious you are, but this was a directive that came from the top. They take shit from thugs AND from politician trying to score easy points painting the cops as the bad guys.
    - guard-of-terra 12y ago
      I don't understand how it's still possible to score points that way if things described by grangrandparents are true. Public should have switched to "cops are bad guys unless there is an immigrant involved" long ago.

Kiro 12y ago

I'm sorry but I was hoping they would find the thugs and just beat the hell out of them. I've lived in a real ghetto type of area in Spain where the track suit thugs robbing people were an everyday feature.

ximi 12y ago
I'm planning to move to Spain soon, so may I ask where it is that you lived?
- Kiro 12y ago
  La Línea de la Concepción, the border town next to Gibraltar. Not a very nice place to live (Gibraltar is awesome and super safe though, but expensive).
  - BSousa 12y ago
    On the other hand, there are a bunch of nice places around the area that are pretty safe and beautiful (Guadiaro, Sabinillas, Manilva, or larger/more expensive you have Sotogrande, Estepona) But yeah, La Linea is an absolute dump, wouldn't be caught living there (the smells, the people, the pollution, horrible!)
    - Kiro 12y ago
      Yeah, you're absolutely right. If you're working in Gibraltar and can't afford living there or want to live in Spain I would definitely recommend some of those or at least Santa Margarita. You can get a villa in Spain for the same price as a small one bedroom apartment in Gibraltar.
      - mnemonicsloth 12y ago
        What do you think about British sovereignty?
        12y ago

blackdogie 12y ago

in case you've missed it, it's from 2004, so I doubt that it's still like that in Warsaw.

lotsofmangos 12y ago

Reminds me a little of Bert Kreischer's skit, "The Machine". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHfroJBMlVM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHfroJBMlVM

cpks 12y ago

I wish we had cops like this in Cambridge, MA. Whenever I've reported a crime, or seen people report a crime, the police can't be bothered...

lotsofmangos 12y ago
You may want to temper that desire with the thought that it does sound as though, motivated as they were, the police did about the same as the original thugs, to a variety of other people, without finding anyone. edit - The German general Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord was quoted as saying; "I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent -- their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy -- they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief." These police in this story are definitely in the stupid and diligent section of Kurt's matrix.
- hypertexthero 12y ago
  I've recently [experienced][1] the latter type of policeman here in Rome. [1]: http://simongriffee.com/notebook/police-aggression-coercion-photographing-colosseum-rome http://simongriffee.com/notebook/police-aggression-coercion-...
nsfmc 12y ago
I had the exact opposite experience in cambridge in 2006. I saw some kids trying to steal a vespa and called the police, dispatch didn't give me any hope that the situation would actually be addressed even though i could see it happening a block away from me. about ten minutes later, i get a call from the police to go id the kids about a quarter mile away. about two months later, i got a summons to testify out by ashmont. i didn't really connect "i see something" with "i will say something in court" when i called and it gave me an appreciation for the realities of witness intimidation. in contrast, someone walked through my office once and lifted a couple ipads and a few wallets. mountain view police came by about half an hour later, took a report, and that's the last i heard of it. some things are easier to deal with and a small robbery like that i'm told is basically a lost cause. i often found cambridge, somerville and medford police and fire were impressively responsive, even for relatively minor complaints, but i'm sorry you and your friends' experiences have been lackluster.

Spearchucker 12y ago

Krav Maga. First thing it teaches you is to stay away from areas where something like this is possible. The next thing they teach you is to run away. If you think you'll look like a coward, compare that feeling to having a knife in your arm. If none of that works out for you, they teach you how to defend yourself. Brutally. Even how to extricate your wrist or arm from a grab. Physical size and strength (yours and your assailants) doesn't matter. Just a couple of lessons should equip you well enough to avoid what happened here. Give the lessons some time and you should have enough to deal with multiple assailants, knife, stick and gun threats. I see this as a basic life skill, right up there with at least enough knowledge to differentiate a Monet from a Van Gogh, or a Beethoven from a Rachmaninoff.

rb2k_ 12y ago
Kind of a stretch to call that a "basic life skill". In my last 30 years, I never had to fight anyone or differentiate a Monet from a Van Gough or a Beethoven from a Rachmaninoff. Then again, I don't life in crime heavy neighbourhoods or go to dinner parties that fancy. Maybe that's something for the next 30.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  You should get out more, I've needed those skills in one evening. edit - Defending yourself is a basic life skill. Not ever getting into a fight means you are already fairly good at it.
  - jessaustin 12y ago
    Let me guess: when you drink beer, you prefer Dos Equis.
    - lotsofmangos 12y ago
      Wasn't familiar with the advert till I just looked it up. But no, I have to say, that if I am feeling pretentious, I would have to claim to be more Churchillian in my tastes. What really sets you up for breakfast is some Carlsberg Special Brew, washed down with a nice glass of Buckfast Tonic Wine.

julie1 12y ago

I am coming from «la banlieue». These kind of incidents happens to you so much time in your life that I can't empathize. Aggression is stressful, but even being beaten is not the end of the world. It's part of the process of becoming adult at my opinion to know how to face these kind of incidents. And our special policemen «la BAC» are behaving like bad cops in movie we call them the cowboys. When you see them in the suburbs they cover a surface of 15km in radius. But, when you go in Paris, where people are wealthy you can have 4 cars looking for a block because one gypsiy has been spotted pickpocketing. The normal cops on the field are worse. They can control you. And even if you are white (and right) when they control you if you are not in suit an tie or looking like a rich kid they will talk to you like a 6 years old kid if they think you look like a criminal. Most of the time I am white and dressed like a rick kid, so it's rather pretty okay for me. I have 2 friend of mine who are in the police. I know what they face, and I also see the other side of the fence. The worst is it does not seems related to human nature, but much more the result of a cascade of bad political, economical and social decisions that resulted in a clock-like mechanic of systemic violence based on a ghettoisation of violence. Just to say where I come from we all experienced these «aggression», and I will develop the reason why it is bad to flee and not face the problem. I avoided not the streets of my town, but the violence (my martial art was running like hell). And then I learnt how to face it more constructively. I learnt. By overcoming your fear of the place, you can meet the people: the thugs, the cowboy, the rich kids .... And you see that whatever you can think, this violence is not directed towards you. It is directed towards the society, and the pain they live in. Towards discrimination ans poverty. You learn there are bad guys every where (cops, rich kids, thugs) and nice guys too. But learn for survival to spot two important informations: who has the more power, and who can reach you. to sum up: R > C > T in terms of power. Rich kids are out of reach of the law, and the thugs because they live in their ghetto, and can call for more cops. You may think it is not violent a rich kid. But in the private school near me the kids of celebrities (such as famous actors) were famous for drug consommation (they had the money), being thieves and all, but the cops were constantly surveying the public school where no one had as much money (coke was expensive). Cops have more power on you and the thugs because they put you in jail for fallacious reasons. So you learn to not be picky when they troll you and talk to you as if you were a retarded. You notice that they do it all the more you are black or to tanned. Except if you have a kipa, that would be antisemitism and that is not well socially tolerated. Then, they are the thugs, they are a pain in the ass. They are often the dealers and some times thugging the rich kids. But, they never thug the rich kids where they live, because troubles are bad for business. So I you are close to a place where people deal, you have less crimes that make the people call the police (like prostitution). It can be seen as cool. Then you go to work to the capital. There people call you an affabulator or a mythomaniac when you tell your stories, bacause «they live in the same place, and it never happened to them». And one day at works a rich kid will whine because he was «thugged». An incident level 2 on the Richer scale of what you experienced. And he will call for more security, more repression, and he will eventually blame it on the coloured and tanned. It is not always true, but mostly we can spot a lot of the «rich kids» are jews, because sepharadim last name are as easy to recognize as the colour of the skin. It creates prejudices. Is it stastically true? I don't care. I you want to understand, you have to accept the other's point of view. And guess what, because I was learning french boxing I met both people practicing «ratonnade»(when you go in a city to beat the pulp of the arabs) and thugging the rich kids. I liked these people though. They hate each others because a fraction of the others are violent to them on the sole reason of their difference. So they have violent discriminating violence that reinforces itself in vicious feedback loop: no one is innocent. And they all go voting marine le pen hoping she will get rid of the bad guys. So I decided to take a stand rationally. I blame it on everyone. I blame it more on the more powerful. The vicious circle can only be broken by stopping to exert discriminative violence, and stopping to create the social, political reasons of the core violence : poverty AND ghettoisation. I quite loaded the end of my description so that you have an overview of how the conflict in Israel can spread to other cities in Europa. They spread because we built the same kind of ghettos where poor and tanned are concentrated and other citizens live in another reality protected by the walls of the force of order. The conflict still has not yet comes as far as using tank and rockets. Just stones, kicks vs tasers and gum guns (40mm cartridge with gum balls). The moral of my story is when you are thugged, learn to pass through the violence so you don't take part in this vicious cicle. So that you don't ignore it, and try to make you understanding of this shitty situation. If you avoid it, if you avoid the places where over citizens are going you ignore what is happening in your community. And if you call for only more order, you just take part in the building of violence. Problems are to be face. Problems are to be solved, especially when they induce the violence and the pain in the community. Maybe my analysis is wrong, but I think I am right to care. I was right not to flee and whine. PS for the record my city -Pontoise- ranks as one of the calmest city you can see in my banlieue, and the aggression I have faced were no more than 4 on a span of 30 years except if you add the 6 guys always trying to beat me at the end of school for 6 months in a row because I was socially awkward and pedantic, but they never got me, because I was escaping smartly the school every time -but this is just bullying- I don't call that an aggression just an initiatic rite for your acceptance in the empire of nerddom.